Michel Benaroch

Professor Benaroch is Associate Dean for Research and Ph.D. Programs and Professor of MIS at the Whitman School of Management. Professor Benaroch's research addresses issues concerning the economics of cybersecurity, IT investment, IT investment risk, ontology-centered knowledge representation, and artificial intelligence applications in finance and business. He has published extensively in information systems and computer science journals, including MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of MIS, IEEE Transaction on Software Engineering, International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, and International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction. He was ranked #26 (out of top-100 researchers worldwide) who published in top Information Systems journals (MISQ, ISR, JMIS, and JAIS) during 1999-2011.


While at Whitman, Professor Benaroch has taught courses on business analytics, customer relationship management analytics, management of information technology (IT), IT and Electronic Commerce, decision-support and data mining technologies, and database management. He has also taught at the Israeli Institute of Technology (Technion), New York University, and the University of Rochester.

Research Topics

• Information technology investments
• Information technology investment risks
• Information technology investment portfolios
• Management information systems

My research interests are:



Cybersecurity economics. Studying cyber incidents and their impacts on organizations, including firm performance and the board of directors; studying cybersecurity risks in IT outsourcing and emerging risk management approaches; and, the evaluation and optimization of investments in cybersecurity.


Economics of Information technology (IT). Using financial and economics techniques to evaluate IT investments, measure IT investment risk, and manage IT portfolios. One focus is on “real option” techniques applied to investments in new IT innovations and in growth IT capabilities (infrastructure).


IT-Oriented Service Innovation. Studying the management of risk in IT outsourcing relationships.


Artificial intelligence in finance. Application of knowledge systems and data mining to finance and economics problems.


Working Papers

• "Market Impact: To Trade Small or to Trade Seldom? Evidence from Algorithmic Execution Data",

Selected Publications

• "No Rose without a Thorn: Board IT Competence and Market Reactions to Operational IT Failures", Information & Management, 2021 (with Fink, L.)
• "Third-Party Induced Cyber Incidents – Much Ado About Nothing?", Journal of Cybersecurity, 7(1), 2021
• "IT Service Providers and Cybersecurity Risk", , 64(4), 2019
• "Real Options Models for Proactive Uncertainty-Reducing Mitigations and Applications in Cybersecurity Investment Decision-Making", Information Systems Research, 2018
• "Operational IT Failures, IT Value-Destruction, and Board-Level IT Governance Changes", MIS Quarterly, 41(3), 729-762, 2017 (with Chernobai, A.)
• "Contract Design Choices and the Balance of Ex-Ante and Ex-Post Transaction Costs in Software Development Outsourcing", MIS Quarterly, 40(1), 55-82, 2016 (with Lichtenstein, Y., Fink, L.)
• "An internal control perspective on the market value consequences of IT operational risk events", International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, 13(4), 357-381, 2012 (with Chernobai, A., Goldstein, J.)
• "Impact of sourcing flexibility on the outsourcing of services under demand uncertainty", European Journal of Operational Research, 219(2), 272-283, 2012 (with Webster, S., Kazaz, B.)
• "Pricing e-service quality risk in financial services", Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 10(5), 534-544, 2011 (with Appari, A.)
• "An event study analysis of the economic impact of it operational risk and its subcategories", Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 12(9), 606-631, 2011 (with Goldstein, J., Chernobai, A.)
• "Financial pricing of software development risk factors", IEEE Software, 27(5), 65-73, 2010 (with Appari, A.)
• "Monetary pricing of software development risks: A method and empirical illustration", Journal of Systems and Software, 83(11), 2098-2107, 2010 (with Appari, A.)
• "Should we go our own way? Backsourcing flexibility in IT services contracts", Journal of Management Information Systems, 26(4), 317-358, 2010 (with Dai, Q., Kauffman, R.)
• "An integrative economic optimization approach to systems development risk management", IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 35(5), 638-653, 2009 (with Goldstein, J.)
• "Option-based risk management: A field study of sequential information technology investment decisions", Journal of Management Information Systems, 24(2), 103-140, 2007 (with Jeffery, M., Kauffman, R., Shah, S.)
• "Real options in information technology risk management: An empirical validation of risk-option relationships", MIS Quarterly, 30(4), 827-864, 2006 (with Lichtenstein, Y., Robinson, K.)
• "On the valuation of multistage information technology investments embedding nested real options", Journal of Management Information Systems, 23(1), 239-261, 2006 (with Shah, S., Jeffery, M.)
• "Information retrieval with a hybrid automatic query expansion and data fusion procedure", Information Retrieval, 8(1), 41-65, 2005 (with Xu, Y.)
• "Supply chain coordination in buyer centric B2B electronic markets", International Journal of Production Economics, 92(2), 113-124, 2004 (with Wang, C.)
• "Managing information technology investment risk: A real options perspective", Journal of Management Information Systems, 19(2), 43-84, 2002